They all laid a heavy burden on the taxpayer, in order to supply a bribe to the member of Parliament.
The plain remedy was to annihilate the subordinate treasuries.

"Take away," was Burke's demand, "the whole establishment of detail in the household: the Treasurer, the Comptroller, the Cofferer of the Household, the Treasurer of the Chamber, the Master of the Household, the whole Board of Green Cloth; a vast number of subordinate offices in the department of the Steward of the Household; the whole establishment of the Great Wardrobe; the Removing Wardrobe; the Jewel Office; the Robes; the Board of Works." The abolition of this confused and costly system would not only diminish expense and promote efficiency; it would do still more excellent service in destroying the roots of parliamentary corruption.

"Under other governments a question of expense is only a question of economy, and it is nothing more; with us, in every question of expense, there is always a mixture of constitutional considerations." Places and pensions, though the worst, were not by any means the only stumbling-block in the way of pure and well-ordered government.

The administration of the estates of the Crown,--the Principality, the Duchy of Cornwall, the Duchy of Lancaster, the County Palatine of Chester,--was an elaborate system of obscure and unprofitable expenditure.

Wales had to herself eight judges, while no more than twelve sufficed to perform the whole business of justice in England, a country ten times as large and a hundred times as opulent.